Summer is a season of abundance. Fresh fruit and vegetables are everywhere and people are tripping over them -- quite literally in the case of those with gardens!
Deep dark greens drizzled lightly with a favorite dressing, sweet buttery corn, grilled zucchini, plump tomatoes bursting with juices.....the list can go on and on. But sometimes...oh, sometimes!
A bad thing can happen.
Summer is also the season of grilled cheeseburgers, rainbow sprinkled ice cream, amusement park funnel cakes, S'mores milkshakes at Burgatory, and crisp steak fries everywhere one goes. And then, let's not forget the countless picnics, parties, and get togethers that friends have! Chips, chips, and more chips and occasionally some brownies thrown in for a bit of variety. My friends, unfortunately, do not share the same food values that I have. I prefer a whole foods diet with lots of fruits and vegetables and I try to avoid processed foods as much as possible. Very few come into my home and I try to limit consumption of such things to when I am not at home. But the month of August has been very difficult for me; I've eaten more bad things in this month alone than I have for the prior three!
Let's not even get started on the amount of diet Pepsi I was consuming.
At first I didn't notice anything but then I started to notice that I constantly felt a hunger I couldn't satisfy and I just kept putting more and more bad things inside of me. I felt heavy and lethargic. My stomach often wasn't very happy by the end of the day and I constantly felt bloated. And greasy. And frankly? Just plain gross! I knew it was what I had been eating--junk--and what I hadn't been eating--whole foods--and I had to do something about it.
I had to reset.
The very next morning, I turned on my new Punch Brothers Cd while I kneaded some dough for Italian bread and thought about what vegetables I had on hand and what I could do with them. It was an unseasonably cool day and I decided I would make a nourishing summer minestrone full of vegetables--tomatoes, green beans, zucchini, peas, carrots, celery, and onions. The aroma filled the house as the soup simmered.The first bite was delicious. And so was the next and the next and the next and I scraped that bowl clean!
It was just what I needed. A reset. Since then, I've been able to return to my preferred diet and I am feeling good in my body again. Gone is the heavy, bloated feeling. Gone is the greasy, gross feeling. I feel light and energetic and more importantly.....
Satisfied.
